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‘Oh Papa.’ What God does with Older Men

‘Oh Papa.’ What God does with Older Men

Last updated on: July 26, 2025 at 6:40 am by Mark Williams

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‘Oh Papa.’ What God does with Older Men 2025-07-26T06:40:01-07:00 Mark Williams

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Older men

Older men….

I was driving two of my grandchildren today. Filling the work gap between mom and dad and kid coverage which during summer is not always smooth. Papa was filling that time with driving them to three restaurants for dinner. Jersey Mikes where they ran out white bread, Panda Express, and a cookie dough store. It’s here we find out what God does with older men.

On the way, Papa told them it’s always good to have some good music playing. None of that ‘do her like a grilled cheese sandwich.’ Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted to Love’ with the heavy drum beat lead-in caused Papa to bob his head like he was a Aborigine dancing around a ceremonial fire. Steve Windwood’s ‘Valerie’ followed causing Papa to sing with Steve Valerieeeeeeee. The only lyric he knew as the name was also scattered throughout the song.

I told them when they got married, Papa was going to dance at their weddings, then proceeded to show them some of Papa’s best dance moves while driving down the road. ‘Oh Papa’ they said.

I’m not old-yet.

I am not old yet. I’m getting there, but still well down range. Most men my age are starting to acquire Wisdom and learning how to use it. I think that is me as well. It took me a long time to get game time in this season. I’ve outlived my own dad by ten years. But that was a guy who strafed things in the South Pacific in what today was the precursor to a 737 we all ride to San Diego and where my Papa danced on the Del Coronado bar just a few days before he left for the show. Flying a machine that would land on the ocean-at night and flew and handled like a Masse-Ferguson truck with about the same speed. So, he earned the diabetes, chronic smoking and drinking which took him early.

But he also was kind and showed me how to hold a rifle, shoot it with open sites and hit a paper plate with a penciled circle in the center of it at about 300 yards. Then, slowly, keeping my eyes on the site, ejecting the spent round, reloaded another and as if I was caressing with a loving touch, slid the bolt forward and fired again.

‘Older men,’ not to be mistaken for Old Men, have learned to look good in suits and ties, as well as Levi Jeans and well-worn boots. Look and an older man in his cowboy boots and if they are scuffed and chewed on by a small varmint, that man knows things.

They go to work every day. At this age, they’ve been doing it for years. They sometimes carry their own lunch box, made of plain steel and containing a ‘Thermos.’ A real Thermos with a capital T. They make their beds daily and if there is still someone in it, he makes his half. His feet are most of the time the first ones on the deck and the last to be lifted off to bed hours later.

When you shake their hand, they look at you-dead in the eyes. Like they can tell by looking if you’re lying or not. They can.

…claw hammer….

He knows what a claw hammer is as well as a super shock tip. He has them both in a junk drawer in the kitchen.

Older men, sometimes yearly—on the vigil, would sit down at the kitchen table, tying a handkerchief around his eyes so he could not see, and unload, breakdown and then reassemble his old handgun. Just to see if he still could—just in case. He still can.

They have given up with keeping iodine in the medicine cabinet and simply keeps a bottle of isopropyl alcohol there to rub it on anything on his body needing killing or sanitizing. He showed his grandson how it works on pimples in his freshmen year after Mary Sanduzy smiled at him. It worked. It cleared up in three days along with his jock itch. That burning feeling, he would say, meant those bad things were dying.

When they grill, they love eating that little fat knob off the end of a ribeye steak while it’s cooking but not quite done. He could also tell you what the three forks and four spoons did on the place setting. He also could tell you there are cannons in Beethoven’s Fifth as well as recite parts of King Henry’s soliloquy

…the neighbor’s dog….

They would save the neighbor’s dog, if he could, before he would save the neighbor. It’s a dog after all. It has the ability to love sacrificially and does not ask we do the same towards them, so that makes them even more worthy of our lives. He refers to them as the indicator of pure love through their eyes.

He loves Jesus. The dog reminds him of such. It took him years to get here but now he is ready for his finest hour as a friend once said. If Jesus was over for dinner, he would enjoy the older man’s scotch collection and actually horse laugh when the older man would tell a joke starting with ‘a horse walks into a bar.’

He trusts carefully

He trusts carefully, listens intently, speaks when he has something worthy to say and has at least one knee in pain and his little finger locks back sometimes.

The older man knows pain of failure, of physical wear, of broken hearts. He can name a half dozen life altering moments where he thought were complete failures but discovered without those moments, he would not have family, friends, safety, security, and the ability to empathize with others who had grown to desperately trust him. Those events were part of a Perfect Plan.Is God In Our Sadness? | Faith In Chaos, Stability In Christ

So, children, grandchildren, should fear their Papa will come to their wedding and dance. I throw the gauntlet down at their young feet to dare them to join him on the dance floor. It is the dance of the native fathers from across the world and time. Maybe like the singers wrote about. I’ve included the links here.

Just a guy….

Its an older man’s call. Just a guy with two days of growth, a full mustache and crow’s feet when he smiles. He’s Just a Heart on Fire like the song says.

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About Mark Williams

Mark Williams spent the first twenty-one years of his career as a Special Agent for the Organized Crime Division of the State Attorney General’s Office. As part of his duties, he investigated organized crime, homicides, and fraud cases submitted by other agencies to that office. He has traveled across the United States as an instructor for law enforcement in various capacities. After he retired, he became a high school English teacher at an inner-city school in central Phoenix where he is the fourth generation in his family to live in the valley. Mark was married for almost thirty-eight years and is a retired widower. He has three children and ten grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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